got back from a nice trip to florida w/the gf. her family lives there (and it’s where she did most of her growing up, having been born in brooklyn, nyc). i have to say, spending christmas somewhere it is 75 or 80 degrees was a bit more disconcerting than i thought it would be. don’t think i didn’t enjoy the warmth, as i’m known to hate winter, but it was very different not exchanging presents while it was cold outside. there’s just something to be said for a christmas in winter.

i think i missed that cold, crisp smell the most. it wasn’t the same going outside and sweating and having that damp, moist, summertime type smell. there’s just something about it. every christmas show, commercial, card, or wrapping paper has some sort of snowy winter scene or snowflake on it. i don’t know why, but it always seems like christmas is associated with snow and blustery winter, even when i think more people probably celebrate christmas where it’s warm.

people like the idea of the comfort of a fire, hot chocolate (even though my gf had that almost every day we were there), and big wool sweaters with snowflakes on them. it’s just the way we envision christmas in this country. i don’t know if that comes from the fact that many of our ancestors came from cold climates or what. for whatever reason, christmas and cold just go hand in hand.

anyway, i had a blast but was happy to return home. the orlando airport was mega crowded this morning at 530am when we got there, lines out the wazoo. we only spent like 30 minutes in line total, which wasn’t too bad all told. CMH was dead as usual. i guess no one flys around here or something. i’ve only ever seen it crazy crowded like once in 10 years. but that’s kind of nice in a way, so i hope that doesn’t change.

i mean, really… does that look christmas-y to you?

so it’s that time of year again where all kind of know-it-alls try to tell you what albums you should’ve listened to over the past 365 days. i’m not going to do that, but i’ll definately share with you my top 10, take it or leave it.

1.
every time i die - the big dirty

2.
poison the well - versions

3.
dillinger escape plan - ire works

4.
will haven - the hierophant

5.
el-p - i’ll sleep when you’re dead

6.
porcupine tree - fear of a black planet

7.
jesu - conqueror

8.
pelican - city of echoes

9.
ken andrews - secrets of the lost satellites

10.
radiohead - in rainbows

honorable mentions:
tomahawk - anonymous
high on fire - death is this communion
wu-tang clan - 8 diagrams
akron/family - love is simple
the ocean - precambrian
silverchair - young modern
battles - mirrored
neurosis - given to the rising

yeah i know, a lot of metal.

man i hate winter but i love snow!

gotta love it. college football is one of the best sporting spectacles in the world. the passion of the fans rivals that of any european soccer club. the amount of money spent on ncaa football stuff must be staggering. it’s always fun to watch the somewhat controlled circus that is college football every year. this year however, has probably been one of the craziest seasons ever. i mean, there were something like 8 #2 teams over the course of 12 or 13 weeks. that’s pretty amazing. also, taking into consideration the amount of on the field upsets this year i don’t think anyone should have been surprised by the number of “upset” bowl choices this year.

already the rose bowl is taking flack for choosing 9-3 illinois over 10-2 georgia. the thing that most people miss though is that the rose bowl isn’t tied directly to the bcs like the other bowls. they have an external conference partnership (pac 10/big 10) and an external tv contract. they “go along with” the bcs mainly because the big 10 and pac 10 do. i’m sure if the rose bowl people had their way, they’d prefer the big 10 and pac 10 play there every year. it’s just too bad for them that those conferences make way more money in the bcs. given that, it shouldn’t be any surprise that illinois got the nod over georgia.

speaking of georgia, who really wanted to see them play in the bcs championship game (other than their fans)? clearly none of the voters. it’s seen as some great slight that georgia got leapfrogged by lsu for the #2 spot. after some deliberation i decided it’s exactly what should’ve happend. a team that doesn’t win their conference shouldn’t be allowed to play for the national championship. how can you be the best team in the country if you can’t even win your conference? i understand georgia fan’s feelings on this, but if it were some other team and not theirs i’m sure they’d be happy to see it happen. i bet 99.9% of them were ecstatic when michigan didn’t get a second chance at osu last year in the championship game.

admittedly, i kind of like the bcs. since its inception, college football popularity has gone up. with that though, cries for the end of the bcs have gone up as well. i don’t see why people would want to get rid of it when clearly it has shown to be very popular with the general public/everyday college football fan. i think people really enjoy the fact that games all across the country have an effect on their team, and that come bowl season, 64 out of 119 schools get to play in one. leaving out all the little guys isn’t really any more fun for 99% of the teams.

there are a lot of reasons that the college football post season is the way it is. one is definately money. there are something like 32 bowl games, and even the lame ass ones pay out multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. for some small schools and conferences, that can be a huge boost to their programs. the second reason is the conferences them selves. the big 6 bcs conferences are in no rush to lose their control over the whole system. they are all guaranteed to make tons of money on the current system. lastly you have university presidents who are afraid of a playoff system b/c it undermines the “academic” goals of university athletics. lots of university presidents think that if they go for a playoff system then they’ve basically just created nfl jr. i think that argument is pretty weak (somehow basketball isn’t nba jr?)

a lot of this is spelled out in stewart mandel’s book bowls, polls, and tattered souls which i think should be required reading for any college football fan in the bcs era. he goes into a lot of detail and gives examples backed by actual facts and stats way better than i could. you should give it a read if you are really interested in this stuff.